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Texaco, Inc.
Location: San Ramon, California, United States Founders: Joseph S. Cullinan, Thomas J. Donoghue, Walter Benona Sharp, and Arnold Schlaet Founded: 1901 Key People: Michael K. Wirth (Chairman & CEO) More About The Manufacturer: Texaco was founded in Beaumont, Texas as the Texas Fuel Company in 1902. In 1905, it established an operation in Antwerp, Belgium, under the name Continental Petroleum Company, which it acquired control of in 1913. The next year, Texaco moved to new offices in Houston on the corner of San Jacinto and Rusk. In 1928, Texaco became the first U.S. oil company to sell its gasoline nationwide under one single brand name in all 48 states. In 1931, Texaco purchased Indian Oil Company, based in Illinois. This expanded Texaco's refining and marketing base in the Midwest and also gave Texaco the rights to Indian's Havoline motor oil, which became a Texaco product. The next year, Texaco introduced Fire Chief gasoline nationwide, a so-called "super-octane" motor fuel touted as meeting or exceeding government standards for gasoline for fire engines and other emergency vehicles. It was promoted through a radio program over NBC hosted by Ed Wynn, called the Texaco Fire Chief. In 1936, the Texas Corporation purchased the Barco oil concession in Colombia, and formed a joint venture with Socony-Vacuum, now Mobil, to develop it. Over the next three years the company engaged in a highly challenging project to drill wells and build a pipeline to the coast across mountains and then through uncharted swamps and jungles. During this time, Texaco also illegally supplied the fascist Gen. Franco faction in Spanish Civil War, despite a federal fine, with a total 3,500,000 barrels (560,000 m3) of oil. During the war, Texaco ranked 93rd among United States corporations in the value of military production contracts. In 1947, Caltex expanded to include Texaco's European marketing operations. That same year, Texaco merged its British operation with Trinidad Leaseholds under the name Regent; it gained full control of Regent in 1956, but the Regent brand remained in use until 1968. In 1954, the company added the detergent additive Petrox to its "Sky Chief" gasoline, which was also souped up with higher octane to meet the antiknock needs of new cars with high-compression engines. The next year, Texaco became the sole sponsor of The Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC-TV. In 1959, the Texas Company changed its corporate name to Texaco, Inc. to better reflect the value of the Texaco brand name, which represented the biggest selling gasoline brand in the U.S. and only marketer selling gasoline under one brand name in all 50 states. It also acquired McColl-Frontenac Oil Company Ltd. of Canada and changes its name to Texaco Canada Limited. Around this time, Paragon Oil, a major fuel oil distribution company in the northeastern U.S, was acquired. In 1964, Texaco introduced the "Matawan" service station design at a station in Matawan, New Jersey. Two years later, Texaco replaced the long-running banjo sign with a new hexagon logo that had previously been test-marketed with the "Matawan" station design introduced two years earlier. The new logo featured a red outline with TEXACO in black bold lettering and a small banjo logo with a red star and green T at bottom. The following year, the Regent name was replaced by Texaco at British petrol stations. In 1970, in response to increasingly stringent federal emission standards that would ultimately lead to the mandating of unleaded gasoline in 1975 and later-model cars and trucks, Texaco introduced lead-free Texaco as the first regular-octane lead-free gasoline at stations in the Los Angeles area and throughout Southern California. Lead-free Texaco became available nationwide in 1974. On November 20, 1980, the Lake Peigneur/Jefferson Island disaster occurred. Two years later, a new service station design was introduced. Several product names were also changed with the advent of self-service including Lead-free Texaco to Texaco Unleaded, Fire Chief to Texaco Regular, and Super Lead-free Sky Chief to Texaco Super Unleaded. In January 1989, Texaco and Saudi Aramco agreed to form a joint venture known as Star Enterprise in which Saudi Aramco would own a 50% share of Texaco's refining and marketing operations in the eastern U.S. and Gulf Coast. In 1989, Texaco introduced System3 gasolines in all three grades of fuel, featuring the latest detergent additive technology to improve performance by reducing deposits that clog fuel injection systems. Toronto-based Texaco Canada Incorporated was sold to Imperial Oil with all Texaco Canada retail operations converted to Esso brand. Two years later, the company was awarded the National Medal of Arts. In 1991, non-retail Canadian operations became Texaco Canada Petroleum Incorporated with head office in Calgary, Alberta. In 1993, several dozen tribal leaders and residents from the Ecuadoran Amazon filed a billion-dollar class-action lawsuit against Texaco, as a result of massive ecological pollution of the area and rivers around Texaco's Ecuadorian offshore drilling sites, causing toxic contamination of approximately 30,000 residents. In 1994, Texaco's System3 gasolines were replaced by new CleanSystem3 gasoline for improved engine performance. In 1995, Texaco merged its Danish and Norwegian downstream operations with those of Norsk Hydro under the new brand HydroTexaco. This joint venture was sold in 2007 to Norwegian retail interests as YX Energi, following the purchase of Hydro by Statoil. On February 8, 2002 Chevron Corporation merged with Texaco and Shell purchased Texaco's interest in the Equilon and Motiva joint ventures. Shell began converting its Texaco stations to the Shell brand the next year. Around 2003, due to lack of demand, Texaco closed Refineria Panamá, a refinery in Colón, Panama. In July 2004, Chevron regained non-exclusive rights to the Texaco brand name in the U.S. The following year, in August, Texaco introduced the Techron additive into its fuels in the U.S. and parts of Latin America. In 2007, Delek Benelux took over marketing activities for Chevron in Benelux, including 869 filling stations, mostly under the Texaco brand. Chevron Corporation also sold its Conoco stations in Mississippi to the Texaco brand name. "Texaco Canada Petroleum Incorporated" was dissolved in 2008 with Texaco exiting from the Canadian market. In 2010 Texaco ended retail operations in the Mid-Atlantic US, removing its brand from 450 stations in Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, D.C. Texaco has also been known in racing sponsorships, even in NASCAR races and cars, making them quite a well known brand in iRacing thanks in part to the paint schemes that have Texaco has their sponsor, primary or secondary. Category:North American Fuel Suppliers Category:American Fuel Suppliers Category:Fuel Suppliers